Configure AWS Cloudwatch billing alerts

Billing is perhaps one of the most critical metrics that an individual or organization needs to monitor while using AWS. We must be mindful of the cost of the services we consume and be reminded if we are going over budget.
AWS Cloudwatch helps us to configure billing alerts via which we can receive email notifications if our current bill exceeds a certain threshold value.

In this article I'll take you through the steps involved in configuring a cloudwatch billing alert.

Let's go to the cloudwatch dashboard by clicking on cloudwatch under mangement tools section of the AWS services menu. From here click on billing.

It says that no billing metrics were found. This is because we have not yet opted to receive billing alerts in our AWS billing dashboard.
To do so head to the billing dashboard by expanding the user name drop down in the top roght of the screen and click on billing dashboard.
Once the dashboard opens click on preferences.

Check mark the box next to 'Receive Billing Alerts' and click on 'Save preferences'. The update will take a while and will not be instantaneous.

Now let's head back to the billing section of the cloudwatch dashboard.

As you can pbserve we now have the option to create a billing alarm available to us. Click on 'Create Alarm'.

We will now be prompted to enter a cost threshold and the email address to be notified when the bill exceeds this amount.

Once you've filled the details click on 'Create Alarm' and we are finished.